Grace wrote:
When I was in Bible College, one of my professors jokingly pointed out that every time they got together in the book of Acts, they seem to be eating. Then he would end his story by saying, "Thank God I'm a Pentecostal!"

My brother-in-law has gotten so big that he should be on one of those Discovery channel shows. He is approaching the "can't get through the door stuck in my house" size. He only goes down to the church a couple of days a week, does all his "work" from home and can't even wipe his own butt. My sister told me he has a special shower thing that he uses to clean himself after a bowl movement and as a result he refuses to go to the bathroom away from home. I am guessing he is around 500 pounds and he is not a tall man. 13 years ago his belt was so big it was longer than I am tall and he looked quite a bit bigger the last time I saw him 2 years ago.

He has been on a diet for years...but when he diets, he has to do it his way...he has to tweak it and cheat and he never loses weight. He always claims he has lost 40 pounds, but he always looks bigger every time he diets. His favorite is Atkins, but he is even a glutton on this diet. He will order 5 pepperoni pizzas and scrape the cheese, meat and sauce off and throw the crust away. He goes through 2 jars of macadamia nuts in one sitting and will eat slim jims as if they were french fries. My sister will make himf 4 or 5 huge chicken breasts and a serving bowl full of salad, covered with a half a brick of shredded cheese and slathered in dressing. This thing will look like it should serve a crowd, but it is his side salad. And the whole time he is "dieting" he whines and complains about what he can't eat. He treats everyone just awful and then justifies it by saying he is cranky because he is dieting. And he cheats on his diet. I have seen him at the gas station cleaning out the back seat of his car..which is littered with fast food bags. Then he lies to his wife when she grills him about what he ate and he will eat the massive dinner she prepared for him.

He pastors in a pretty crazy little town and the majority of his congregation are ex drug addicts and they have all been brainwashed that you don't speak up to the pastor.They do talk behind his back a bit though. Most of them are pretty freaked about his size, but are too afraid of God's judgement to say anything about it to him. I know visitors that have come to the church and refused to come back because they can't fathom having a pastor that is such a slob.

My sister is interesting though. She hates his weight on one hand but on the other likes it because she loves the idea of people saying, "She is with him?  She has even called him a Fat Fu_ _  when they are fighting. Nice words from the pastor's wife, huh? I think that she likes the idea that she is so thin and (in her mind) gorgeous and he is lucky to be with her. She likes feeling like he is beneath her...somehow that gives her the right to act anyway she wants to and he should just be grateful that this beauty is with him. He has talked about having Weight loss surgery and she is very against it saying a surgery is too dangerous. At the time they had this arguement I told her that he was more in danger of a stroke or heart attack, but she just shrugged her shoulders....that was when I realized that she doesn't care about his health. She wants to keep him fat so she can feel good about herself.

Wow, all that sounds pretty disgusting. I have to agree with Lozza for sure, it's enough to put you off food...and religion.

The funny part is, one of my best friends is rather large. He doesn't eat that much, he's just that way naturally and like most of the people on my shift (including me) he does not exercise often enough. Still, he takes much better care of himself than that. His brother and I got after him when his health took a turn for the worse, and he started walking and it got better. Another friend's brother is a really big guy and he smokes but he doesn't eat like THAT. My ex-wife, for all of her faults and yes, over-eating, was not like that. She got bigger while we were married, lost a lot of it, then gained it back (and did all this more than once) but she's aware on some level that she has a problem. (Or at least she was a couple of years ago.) In a lot of non-Pente churches that I've attended, people would get after a guy like that...out of concern for his health and ask him if he'd been eating right and stuff. I've seen moderate, more sensible Pentes, non-Pente church people and secular people become very concerned about this stuff. So what's the malfunction of the more extreme Pentes in this way??

Has it ever occurred to your sister that if he dies, whether its a heart attack or whatever, then there goes her easy life, meal ticket and apparently self esteem source?? What's her plan then??
  

Integrity above all
Service before self
Excellence in all we do


~United States Air Force core values.


Blackdog, Administrative Schnauzer